Energy / Energy-General

• The Upcoming U.S. - China Struggle for African Energy

  The 19th century saw an epic struggle between competing European powers to divvy up Africa for colonies. Now a similar struggle for Africa is underway, but the main competitors are the U.S. and China, and the two are competing for the Dark Continent's energy and other natural resource reserves. The tussle will define the next decade as the two energy-starved superpowers wrestle over Africa's nascent energy riches, which have remained significantly underdeveloped up to now. Drawing a rough bifurcation line between the two competitors, China is ascendant in east Africa, while the U.S. dominates energy exports from the west, with the Arab…

• Investing in Energy Services Stocks

  Why the entire sector should see a rising tide of revenue and profits... for the next few years. The rapid increase in horizontal drilling and the shale revolution, the energy sector is re-defining the need and demand for North American energy services companies. This has created a work backlog that has the entire industry - drillers, fracking companies, fluid specialists, water services - stretched to the limit, which will keep revenue and profits rising for the sector for at least three years, say research analysts. Peters & Co., a Calgary based oil and gas boutique brokerage firm, estimates 2011 cash…

• How the US Government can Help Encourage a Reduction in Fuel Consumption

  The United States has implemented a variety of policies in the effort to cut back gasoline use. For example, the Obama Administration has invested federal dollars into GM's electric vehicles. The EPA has introduced new fuel economy standards which are to be implemented over time, gradually becoming stricter. The government has also promoted the expansion of biofuels in automobile fuel. However, a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has shown that these policies are not cost-effective and don’t sufficiently curb fuel usage. What is to be done to reduce fuel use and greenhouse gases from vehicle emissions? Implementing…

• US Court of Appeals Yet Again Delays the EPA’s Attempts to Reduce Pollution

  On December 30, The U.S. Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C. stayed implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), which was to take effect on January 1, 2012. The EPA maintains that CSAPR would save 13,000 to 34,000 premature deaths annually, as well as lead to improvements in visibility in national and state parks, and increased protection for sensitive ecosystems including Adirondack lakes and Appalachian streams, coastal waters and estuaries, and forests. The stay was the latest in a long series of setbacks to EPA efforts to regulate a family of air pollutants from coal-fired…

• Gazprom's Mixed Outlook for 2012

  For the Russian Federation’s state-owned natural gas monopoly Gazprom, an entity that everyone loves to hate, 2012 is already shaping up as a decidedly mixed year. The good news is that Ukraine, traditionally Gazprom’s most troublesome customer, has paid its December bill in full, all $1 billion.  Ukraine's national oil and gas company Naftogaz Ukrainy issued a statement noting, "Every month, in a timely manner and in full volume, Naftogaz Ukrainy fulfills its obligations before OJSC Gazprom on payments for imported natural gas."  Not that Naftogaz Ukrainy was happy about it, noting that the price Ukraine paid for Gazprom gas in…

• Nigeria - Protests Rise Against Government's Decision to End Fuel Subsidies

  Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to listen to your drinking buddies in the International Monetary Fund, at least if you want social stability in your country. On New Year’s Day Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan blindsided his electorate by directing his administration immediately to end fuel subsidies, a course of action long urged upon him by the IMF’s banksters. Fuel prices doubled, and in some cases, tripled virtually overnight. Most of Nigeria's 160 million people live on less than $2 a day. Jonathan’s government maintains that it ended the fuel subsidies because in 2011 they cost more than $8 billion and…

• Is the Oil and Gas Industry Trying to Buy a Keystone XL Decision from Congress?

  The House of Representatives under the 112th Congress has been dubbed “the most anti-environmental House in history.” From a refusal to give up on styrofoam in the congressional cafeteria to the push for more uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, this House has an astonishingly deep resume of bad decisions on climate, energy and conservation issues. Rounding out 2011 was a bill forcing President Obama to approve or deny the Keystone XL pipeline in 60 days — taking further federal environmental reviews off the table, even while a former Keystone pipeline inspector called the project a potential “disaster.” A new…

• Reducing Petroleum Consumption from Transportation

  MIT Professor Christopher Knittel has a new paper on the potential for the United States to reduce petroleum consumption. From the paper's abstract: The United States consumed more petroleum-based liquid fuel per capita than any other OECD-high-income country-- 30 percent more than the second-highest country (Canada) and 40 percent more than the third-highest (Luxemburg). This paper examines the main channels through which reductions in U.S. oil consumption might take place: (a) increased fuel economy of existing vehicles, (b) increased use of non-petroleum-based low-carbon fuels, (c) alternatives to the internal combustion engine, and (d) reduced vehicles miles travelled. I then discuss…

• Russian Energy Minister - Sector Enjoyed "Very Successful" 2011

  Ivan Sixpack retains more than a passing interest in the Russian Federation’s income from oil and natural gas exports, which together constitute nearly half of all revenues in Russia's budget. Russia, the largest country in the world, is blessed with massive energy resources. According to the Tomsk Polytechnic University Review, the Russian Federation possesses 12 percent of the world‘s oil, the world’s fifth largest reserves, the world’s largest reserves of natural gas (32 percent of the global total) and 11 percent of the world’s coal deposits. Since the late 1960, when Soviet leaders began the development of western Siberia massive oil…

• Former Pakistani Water Commissioner Guilty of Treason?

  An ungodly row has erupted in Islamabad over the flight to Canada of Pakistan Commission on Indus Water (PIWC) former chief, Syed Jamaat Ali Shah. Shah’s sin/crime? To apparently aid and abet India’s construction of two hydroelectric dams on the upper reaches of the Indus River. The 45 megawatt, 190-foot tall Nimoo-Bazgo concrete dam is on the Indus River Upstream Gilgit Baltistan in Alchi village in Leh district, begun in June 2005. The second facility unsettling Pakistan is the 140-foot high, 44 megawatt Chutak hydroelectric power project is also being completed on the Suru River, a tributary of Indus in the Kargil…